drkrash wrote:However, I think we're also supposed to see the cracks in Ollie and Sarah's relationship to add to her inevitable death...

I'm not yet convinced that Sara's going to die but her running off to Nyssa could have been handled a lot better. The idea that Oliver's somehow this super great guy, and Sara's not worthy of his affection is ridiculous. Ollie's a complete jackass, a hypocrite, and the only reason he's not he least likeable character on the show is because Laurel's an obnoxious harridan. Even she's getting better over the last few episodes.

drkrash wrote:...and the equally inevitable introduction of Ollie's 7-year old son Connor in the future.

Connor Hawke is one of my favourite characters, so I really hope this kid isn't supposed to be him.

drkrash wrote:Sadly, I think it's going to be pretty hard to redeem Roy to the side of the angels this season.

Nah, they'll use Killer Frost and Vibe's mirakuru cure and all his irrational behaviour will be forgiven. If the show can imply that Huntress could be redeemed after everything she's done, Roy's 'roid rage won't be an issue.

Whether she dies or not (and I think she will), there have been way too many projections that Sara is soon to be gone. I won't mind. My affection for her has dimmed significantly, and just being physically apt for the role is not enough.

Why *wouldn't* it be Connor? They've been using all the core parts of Ollie's background, and he's not old enough to have an actual teen sidekick, and they're not going to drop that plotline and leave it, so it has to be Connor.

I never bothered to check the names of those STAR Lab characters (that's who I assumed you were referring to) - that's who their IDs actually are? Huh.

Anyway, I know they will redeem Roy. I just said that I didn't think it would happen by the end of this season.

My hope is the "I am the Arrow" line in the preview is to Laurel. Let's move that along in a positive fashion.

“Anti-Intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.”-Isaac Asimov

drkrash wrote:Why *wouldn't* it be Connor? They've been using all the core parts of Ollie's background, and he's not old enough to have an actual teen sidekick, and they're not going to drop that plotline and leave it, so it has to be Connor.

I was excited about the prospect of Connor Hawke being brought into this continuity, right up until we got to see Oliver's unnamed baby-mama on screen.

While Connor's ethnicity isn't a hugely important aspect of his character, the treatment of Asian characters on 'Arrow' has been questionable at best. Switching Shado from being Japanese to Chinese and completely whitewashing Sin both seem unnecessary. If a character named Connor Hawke does show-up, it would be cool if he maintained the character's mixed race.

Oliver's kid could be Cissie King-Jones, i.e. Arrowette. In the comics when she was first introduced, her mother tried to claim that Oliver was her father and I don't think it was ever proved otherwise.

Roy's being kept sedated to keep him from going on more psychotic killing sprees? Once again, no big deal.

Ollie has a kid that he doesn't know about and Moira's been keeping more secrets from him? The kid part doesn't need a build-up. It'd be just as effective (probably more so) if the kid popped into Ollie's life out of the blue. Moira keeping secrets? Not exactly news.

Moira's in the race/out of the race/in the race? Irrelevant. She's known Ollie's secret for about a year? Mildly interesting, in that it has potential to shake things up. Moira's dead? Well, that pretty much blows any of that potential they'd just built up.

Ollie and Thea are emotionally traumatized? Been there and done that.

They tried hard to evoke all sorts of emotions, but it just seems like they kept missing the mark.

Don't get me wrong. I think Moira's death was handled quite well... But it wasn't enough to make up for the rest of this largely pointless episode, so this one still only rates "mediocre."

I'll be honest, I am completely bored with Arrow now. The Slade plot just went on for to long & there was just to much inaction in those recent episodes.... To much of the covert "everything is a secret" nonsense, it got in the way of actually telling an interesting story about characters actually doing something. Time to kill it & bring back the episodic with hints or serialisation format.

“Anti-Intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.”-Isaac Asimov